The steering committee election for the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group will start on the 10th of January and run until the 23rd. The elected committee will replace the founding members group (previously chosen by The Wikipedia Library team), in guiding, making key decisions and leading the user group.

I am an active editor and a community leader. I was a partnership coordinator of the Wikipedia Library in 2016 in Ghana.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rberchie (talk) 23:46, 8 January 2018‎ (UTC)

Currently, I am a volunteer with the Algerian user group. I coordinate since 2015 with the Arabic and French wikipedia library. our group translates into Arabic every Books & Bytes when it comes out.
my 2018 goal is to consolidate single access to all partner libraries with wikimedia's central access account.--Mohammed Bachounda (talk) 09:35, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

For the last 3 years I have been coordinating GLAM-Wiki activities in Côte d'Ivoire along with other volunteers of the local User Group. As our main focus is on librairies, we leverage the valuable documents they possess for increasing quality of content related to Côte d'Ivoire and Africa in general. I intend to offer this humble experience with libraries from the Global South. African Hope (talk) 15:08, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello, my main area of Wikimedia activity is in outreach, GLAM, and Wikimedia Commons. My background is in government and adult education.

Last summer I organized my first editing event, a collaboration between Wikimedia DC and Wikimedia Levant at a local library to celebrate the 13th birthday of the Arabic Wikipedia. More recently, I participated as a course guide in the Wikipedia + Libraries project. We need to work both with library systems and with the Wikimedia Foundation to anticipate what support systems are needed by library programs and librarians, based on feedback and experience.

I am Collection Management Librarian/Associate Professor at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Since 2014 I have been actively engaged in global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia efforts, have run and participated in edit-a-thons in Minnesota, and have educated librarians about Wikipedia through state conferences. I am the Twitter administrator for @wikilgbt where I connect and promote Wikipedians from around the world engaged in creating/editing LGBTQ+ content. I am a member of the "Voices of Under Threat" project organized by the Wikimedia Foundation Support and Safety team, and served as a guide for the Wikipedia + Libraries course. If I am elected a member of this user group/steering committee, I will advocate for the following:

Increasing visibility and influence of librarians currently engaged in global Wikipedia efforts--particularly librarians from marginalized populations;

Building and improving networks where Wikipedian librarians can support each other in their work;

Support The rules say that someone must have signed their name as a member before 21 January to vote, so my vote is not valid. However, I have collaborated with this user and confirm that they have professional library experience and a strong commitment to wiki. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:36, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Apart from my GLAM outreach, I mostly write about the history of geography of Queensland on English Wikipedia and upload contemporary and historical photos in those same topic areas onto Wikimedia Commons. I have an ongoing project to create articles on all of the properties on the Queensland Heritage Register (around 1700 of them, which is nearly complete) and a goal to get every town, suburb and locality of Queensland onto Wikipedia (thousands of them, probably half-way at least in terms of not being redlinks). You can read more about me at my user page on English Wikipedia.

My long-term ambitions for the library-Wikimedia interface are to:

find effective ways to provide Wikimedia-related training and support to librarians remotely (rather than face-to-face) particularly to support libraries and librarians where there is no local Wikimedia outreach

find ways to scale successful local initiatives to a wider scale

explore ways to make Wikimedia engagement as part of "business as usual" in libraries and how this might be integrated into professional development programs

develop resources to support the above

While I realise this is more than one year of work, I think it's important to develop a shared "big picture" of the future we want to create and then roll-out a series of annual plans that build toward the larger goals.

I am an academic librarian in the United States and I've been working on Wikimedia projects since 2004, especially the English Wikipedia, where I've been an administrator since 2004, and Wikidata. I've been active in efforts to recruit librarians to volunteer on Wikimedia projects and incorporate them into their professional lives, including presenting at numerous regional professional conferences, running and participating in local events in libraries, and serving as a volunteer Wikipedia guide for the OCLC online Wikipedia + Libraries training program. I've presented on library-related topics at WikiConference North America, where I was a lead organizer, WikiCite, and WikidataCon. I am also active in the Wikimedia community as a member of the Board of Directors of Wikimedia District of Columbia and the programs committee for Wikimania 2018. I am a founding member of the user groups WikiConference North America, Florida Librarians of Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia Library User Group. For WLUG I've primarily worked on their social media presence on Facebook and Twitter. I think this group can serve as a key resource in centralizing library-based outreach programs, providing a point of contact and resources for librarians new to Wikimedia, and coordinating efforts with professional organizations like the American Library Association. Gamaliel(talk) 16:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I am Merrilee and am proud to be one of the founding members of the Wikipedia Library User Group Steering Committee. Since 2012 I have been working to help librarians connect to Wikipedia and vice versa. I feel strongly that Wikimedians need to listen to what librarians need and find different ways to support and intersect with their needs, which will vary by the type of library, the librarians role in their job and also by geography. In my day job I have over 20 years of experience working with librarians (mostly in research libraries and mostly in the US, Canada and Europe), so I believe I am can be a good listener in this regard. In addition to serving on this group, I was a guide in the OCLC course, I have worked as a volunteer for the Wikipedia Library, and I served on the advisory board for the GLAM-Wiki US Consortium. I am the editor of a forthcoming book, Leveraging Wikipedia: Connecting Communities of Knowledge, which is all about the connections between Wikipedia and libraries.

In the next year I think this group can built on past success: supporting #1lib1ref, reviving and reinventing Wikipedia Loves Libraries as an event series, and finding ways to build virtual community among the existing and growing cohort of Wikibrarians and those that support them. I've previous volunteer roles I have been successful in developing and supporting virtual meetups using platforms like Google Hangouts and would love to experiment with more ways to bring our global community together on a regular basis to share stories of challenges and success. Most of all, I want for librarians to feel welcome, included, supported, and heard. Thank you! Merrilee (talk) 22:53, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Support I am not a registered user group member so this vote is not valid, but I have collaborated with this user and feel that they are a strong choice for this role. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:38, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I am Norwegianblue! I work in an academic health sciences library and have helped organize Wikipedia edit-a-thons as a library science student organization leader and as a member of the Florida Librarians of Wikipedia. I am new to Wikimedia and am the first to admit my ignorance. However, I am driven to learn more and become an active contributor, and would take my role on the steering committee seriously. I am particularly interested in focusing on outreach and forming partnerships with medical and consumer health libraries. Thank you! Norwegianblue (talk) 01:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Many of you might not be familiar with Norwegianblue, but I can attest to her work firsthand in Florida, having seen her tireless efforts to organize local Wikipedia events, outreach efforts, conference presentations, and the like, all while holding down a job and being a full time graduate student. If you want someone who is definitely going to put their all into the job I urge you to vote support. Gamaliel(talk) 14:12, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Medical content is a much needed area, particularly in the area of women's health, which I have been told is in need of qualified evaluation of content gaps. At Wikimania this year we found out about Kiwix and how Wikipedia medical content is being made available in refugee areas -- this is an area where Wikipedia has a chance to have a real-life impact in global health. And it is always good to have people with the talent and skills for engaging with the public. Avery Jensen (talk) 20:08, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi there! I’m an academic librarian in North Carolina and have been a Wikipedia editor since 2007. At my university I’ve built up an edit-a-thon program that has included nineteen events and involved at least a dozen other librarians and library science students. In 2017 I led my library’s staff in adding 204 citations during #1lib1ref in a competition with a neighboring university. I’m also the co-founder of a regional Wikipedia user group.

And yet, despite all this, I felt isolated and anonymous in the Wikipedia-library community until I attended my first face-to-face Wikimedia conference in the spring of 2017. Meeting fellow “librarians who Wikipedia” felt like a homecoming to me and led to the revelation that, without knowing it, I had been part of a strong and powerful community.

Library Wikipedians are smart, engaged people who continuously remind me why I became a librarian in the first place. I’m excited by the potential this user group offers to bind the community together and advocate for its interests, and my hope is that its work will mean no other librarian feels isolated or anonymous on Wikipedia. This is the spirit in which I served as a course guide in the OCLC Wikipedia + Libraries online course, and it’s the spirit in which I nominate myself for the steering committee. Thanks for considering my nomination. Sodapopinski7 (talk) 03:05, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I am not registered as a member of this user group so my vote cannot count. However, I wanted to voice my appreciation of this person's offer to represent medical libraries to the group. This would be a valuable perspective to add. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:40, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

G'day, I am one of the founding members of the Wikipedia Library User Group Steering Committee. I am interested in GLAM-WIKI projects and the potential for galleries, libraries, archives and museums to work with the Wikimedia community. I am a librarian and work with other librarians who contribute to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, including the project at the State Library of NSW.

I'm particularly interested in seeing the pool of Wikipedia editors growing to include more GLAM people and in particular librarians. I have experience training GLAM staff in editing and also in developing editing policies, procedures and workflows for GLAM staff. I was part of the program committee for GLAM-WIKI 2015 in The Hague, Netherlands. I was a contributor to the IFLA Wikipedia and Libraries Opportunities Papers in 2016. I'm particularly grateful to the many more experienced Wikipedia / Wikimedia commons / Wikidata contributors who continue to generously share their knowledge, skills and contacts to help me along the way.